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The Results Are In! The Guide of the Year Awards 2022 01/31/23
Which guidewriters won this year? Take a look and give them some congratulations!
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Raidou Kuzunoha XIV
Premium Member
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So full disclosure that this may potentially be a nothing burger, but thought it was still worth bringing to the attention of the 2-3 people here that still have an Xbox 360 that may or may not care about this potential "news". Earlier today, Microsoft posted this on the Xbox support website: However, not too long after, they claimed this was "in error" and the marketplace will not be closing in May: However, earlier this week, it was confirmed that several games will be getting delisted from the Xbox 360 marketplace on 7th February. This doesn't affect the same games being sold on the Xbox One and Series X/S storefronts, and you will still be able to redownload your previously purchased content - however - there will be some digital only games lost completely (to purchase anyway) as a result of these delistings. It should be noted that the article that was apparently posted "in error" stated they "encourage" people to buy 360 games and DLC by May 2023, not that the marketplace was going to close at that time. It's possible Microsoft may plan to slowly phase out the 360 marketplace with further delistings, culminating in a full shutdown sometime in the "near" (next year or so) future. Obviously this is just conjecture based on recent happenings, but it'd probably be best to buy any 360 games/DLC you still want - especially those exclusive to the 360 storefront, and those being delisted in less than a week from now - ASAP.
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Seems PQube will be publishing this in the west, with it also receiving a PEGI physical in the UK/Europe: https://www.gematsu.com/2023/01/grim-guardians-demon-purge-physical-editions-for-ps5-ps4-and-switch-to-be-published-by-pqube-in-the-west I had the Japanese PS5 version pre-ordered on PlayAsia, but will be cancelling that and picking this up locally instead.
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Super quick response, wasn't expecting any tbh, lol. Many thanks for the info.
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Probably a bit of a long shot, but... Does anyone know if the Crayon Shin-chan game that released in Japan a few days ago (this one: store.playstation.com/ja-jp/product/JP5895-CUSA33237_00-0240643814398029) has its trophy list syncing, or if it shares it with the current (syncable) Asian trophy list?
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I've recently been playing a visual novel called Sweet Fuse: At Your Side for the PSP (yeah, sorry folks, it's another game without trophies). This won't be one of my usual (overly) lengthy missives, so fret not to all of those groaning about the inevitable 5 second scroll to get past this nonsense (prolly more like a 1-2 second scroll, ain't ya lucky? An extra 3-4 seconds of your life saved!) . Not gonna go too much into detail, as I feel I never can much with VNs, so easy to spoil 'em if you provide too much info and all.
Anyway, my main reason for wanting to write my thoughts on this is due to just how bizzaro the premise is. You play as Keiji Inafune's (yes, THAT Keiji Inafune) fictional niece whose been thrown into a killing game of sorts, in a theme park based on fictitious video games, complete with an equally wacko villain - some dude in a pig outfit with a penchant for messing with the hapless game participants.
If this sounds familiar to you, yes, it is kinda reminiscent of Danganronpa and Zero Escape/Nonary Games. Main difference with Sweet Fuse being it's an otome (for the uninitiated: basically a dating sim where you play as a female character and have a cast of male characters to romance) first and foremost. It still has a mystery going down though, and it was a fairly engaging one. Definitely not quite as interesting as those aforementioned VN series, but it still scratched that itch somewhat. Also, the artist for this game happens to be the Ace Attorney artist (Tatsurō Iwamoto), another beloved little VN series of mine.
The only real "gameplay" to be had in this title aside from making choices, is the occasional sections where the game will throw you into our protagonist's (Saki) mind and have highlighted words that you must pick to solve certain conundrums, which the game refers to as "Explosive Insights". It's a tad similar to Hangman's Gambit in Danganronpa, if you're familiar.
It's fairly wholesome/mellow in terms of the dating aspects, but it's still an overarching theme of course. I personally didn't really have any strong opinions either way on the romantic aspects, they were serviceable enough, though because it didn't feel too heavily focused on romance to begin with, it actually felt a little forced when it did shift focus to the lovey dovey sections during certain routes.
There's some routes that actually kinda spoil other ones, so there's some characters you'll probably want to avoid befriending before others if you're looking to complete all routes (recommended, of course). If not, you'll have to complete the game at least once regardless in order to unlock the secret route which will ultimately shed light on all the story's lingering questions and mysteries.
I'd definitely recommend it if you're into mystery visual novels/games at all. But as aforementioned, keep in mind it's primarily a dating sim. Also, some of the bachelors' ages are, uh, quite up there compared to our high school protagonist, so just another thing to keep in mind. That, and the lack of any "real" gameplay. If that isn't enough to deter you and you're looking to fill a Danganronpa shaped void (surely I'm not the only one, right?), it's worth checking out.
Now to just wait for Master Detective Archives: Rain Code for a hopefully more authentic Danganronpa fix.
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What was with Inafune & worming his way into niche products in wonky situations. o3o
Anyway, killing games aren't my forté, neither are most otome (Collar x Malice = a rare exception, although that game veered heavily toward detective mystery over prettyboy romance), but shoot, write about any video game that crosses your threshold, if you deign to. Especially the bizarro games....actually, come to think, Otomate = an Idea Factory label, same with Neptunia.... Inafune had a connection with them, clearly. Freaky.
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I've never played a Neptunia (and the number of games in the series now is too daunting for me), but that's... certainly, something.
I started giving otome (and galge) VNs more of a chance in recent times, as I kinda dismissed them previously (aside from Hatoful Boyfriend), believing they were just dating sims, which didn't interest me. But there's plenty that seem to have a lot of interesting plot (no, not that kinda plot
though it's fine if they do), themes and characterisation outside of the dating aspects. I still generally prefer visual novels without the lovey dovey "choose your waifu/husbando" routes, but I've played plenty that essentially had that even if they weren't exactly dating sims, so I thought "how bad can otome/galge really be?" Turns out there's several that have more going for them than just the pretty girl/boy romance, I never realised there were some as or more wacky than Hatoful Boyfriend out there.
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At some point I need to go back and play SMT 1. I actually got pretty far into it
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I'm surprised how much I've enjoyed the old MegaTen games like SMT 1, as I'm not massively into DRPGs otherwise. Maybe them being MegaTen helps though, lol. I experienced some glitches with SMT 1 (SNES version), even with a fan patch that supposedly fixed them. Nothing game breaking though, managed to complete the game on the neutral route, which is what I tend to aim for in MegaTen games (since they're often the "true/canon" endings).
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Surprised I apparently haven't replied to this thread before. There's far too many for me to list anyway, but the vast majority of remasters/remakes I'd like to see are PS2 games. Xenosaga trilogy, Radiata Stories, Dual Hearts, Steambot Chronicles, Tales of Legendia and Rule of Rose are just a few that I'd be all over if they released on modern systems. Mostly all games I've always been interested in, but never got to play back in the day, and mostly because many of them never released in Europe (or they're just stupid expensive now), and we were blessed with the curse of region locking back then.
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Not really, I don't usually consume enough that there are leftovers anyway. And the few times there are, my raccoon of a spouse will eat them. I honestly don't recall the last time I ever had "leftovers".
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It unlocks during story progression in chapter 3. Not every dungeon floor will have a spheda challenge though.
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@Thrillhelm I think you're being a bit pedantic. My point was to try and illustrate roughly why some people feel they can't separate art from artist and can't/won't buy the game as a result - if you feel uncomfortable supporting a game where royalties are going to an individual who hates you for your immutable characteristics, would you still buy it regardless? That was it, that was the entire point, nothing deeper than that - it was a hypothetical meant to pose a question, not "based in reality", because it didn't really need to be. I simply chose men because a lot of people that play games happen to be male, so thought it'd be the widest sweeping net for an analogy/comparison. The fact you can recognise that trans people are a tiny fraction of the population as opposed to men in general should just illustrate what arguably makes this all the worse. Trans people are not exactly universally accepted, they're not half the population like (cis) males are. If you believe men could make an actual dent in sales numbers with a boycott and trans people can't, maybe that alone should give you some inkling of why trans people generally feel like they're silenced or not taken seriously in social issues. (Note that "you" from this point onwards is general "you") If your day to day existence is seeing memes on the internet joking about you being dead/having a high suicide rate, or having "friendly civil discussions" or "questions" about why or why not your desire to transition might actually somehow be wrong or a threat to everyone else, I can't really blame you for wanting nothing to do with a game whose world was imagined by someone exactly like that. I've seen plenty of men throughout the years go ballistic over shit internet hot takes like #menaretrash and what not. Imagine having to see things like that and far worse on a daily basis, and in general, people don't take you seriously. Several people don't even really see you as a fully autonomous human being. Feel free to change things up if you're not male and/or there's other immutable traits you have that you feel more personally attached to. That's my point - if you want to know why people want to boycott this game, just try and put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself if you'd want to support it yourself if YOU were the target of ire instead. If you find you can understand it - even to some small degree - after doing that, maybe then proceed to ask yourself why it would bother you that some people are "guilt tripping" or "preaching" about the game on Twitter or whatever hellhole it is you're perusing on the internet. Remember there's always the option to just scroll past, after all, if it truly isn't any issue to you. Anyway, I think I've exhausted my piece at this point, shit's veered even more off-topic now anyhow.
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Same 'ere. Would be nice if there were an option to pay something like £10 per year for just cloud saves, instead of fooking £50. Mind you, there's some old PS+ games I redeemed that I also kinda wanna keep access to, I guess (not gonna care much if/when I eventually play and finish them though). From what I've heard from pretty much everyone who subscribed to PS+ Premium, it's an immense disappointment and not worth it. There's barely any classic games, and they've been adding them at a snail's pace. The increased cost is generally not worth it from what I hear, but of course these are all second hand opinions I'm relaying. I personally never had any interest in anything above the Essential tier anyway.
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I've had this game in my backlog for far too long (like most of my games, tbh). I wasn't aware of its pro-LGBT themes before buying it, it just seemed like a colourful little indie RPG that instantly appealed to me based on aesthetics alone, but it definitely boosted my interest all the more once I discovered that aspect of it. Just have to get around to finally playing it at some point. That's really the crux of it, isn't it? Lots of people aren't going to particularly care about Rowling's views because it doesn't really affect them, since most people aren't trans. Heck, I'm not trans, but that doesn't mean I can't understand the damage she's done and the reasons why people oppose support of this game as a result. I might feel a bit more personally attached if Rowling was a biphobe instead or something, expressing such wonderful views we've heard a million times before about how bi people are just "confused" or "greedy" or what have you, and advocating for conversion therapy and such. Which makes me wonder what the general consensus on the game would be if she was instead a misandrist that not only expressed hateful views against men, but also campaigned to make things worse for men in society, like trying to reduce support for men's mental health and/or domestic abuse support or something. I imagine there'd still be plenty of people that don't really care and will "separate art from artist", but I would genuinely be curious to see how many could do that when her views and actions actually do directly affect them a tad more. Anyway, I know this thread has gone pretty off-topic multiple times so I'll leave it there. As I've said previously, the game seems like it could be interesting, so I might pick it up pre-owned eventually if it actually does turn out to be decent. Still fully expecting it to just be mediocre though, personally, due to whose developing it.
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Not sure if it's an issue with the game specifically, or the emulator, but I had some issues with Worms Armageddon occasionally crashing (on PS4). It would usually happen if I used the rewind feature or reloaded save states a bit too liberally. Haven't tried the PS5 version of it, so can't comment on that.
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I still play PS1 games pretty regularly, and while the controls certainly haven't aged well in some titles, I still find them mostly perfectly playable. It was before my time, but there's some NES games (and games from other systems around that time) that I do find legitimately painful to play, either on my eyes, or just the gameplay in general. But regardless I've still played some great NES games. I think the only thing that really baffles me about "how on Earth did I do this as a kid?" is the old Gameboy systems without a backlight. I've tried playing my old GBC and original GBA now and then throughout the years, just as a little nostalgia kick, and... Dear lord, how on Earth did I see ANYTHING!? It's just so Goddamn dark the screen may as well be off, I have to hold them at angles to really see anything at all. But somehow I have a lot of fond memories of the Gameboy systems as a kid, no clue how the hell I did it.
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I personally just wish that putting someone on your ignore list also hid their status updates. I honestly can't fathom why it doesn't. AFAIK, that's an issue with the forums' provider in general, not PSNP, so doubt there's really anything that can ever be done about that.